Let’s face it. Building a following on Facebook is more challenging than ever, not to mention getting your posts seen by others, including your followers. Social networks like Facebook control the platforms and the visibility of your posts in order to "encourage" you to advertise with them.

Facebook offers a self-serve Ads Manager tool where you can create and track your image-based or video ads. As always, start with your business goals: what are you promoting or trying to get others to do?

Facebook Ad Objectives

Once you are clear on your goals, you can choose your campaign objective. Here are some objectives offered in Facebook Ads Manager:

• Awareness - to increase visibility and brand awareness
• Traffic - to drive traffic to a specific web destination such as your website
• Engagement - to encourage interactions such as likes or comments and shares
• Leads - to gather contact information from potential customers for lead generation
• App Promotion - to boost downloads if you have a mobile app you’re promoting
• Sales - to more directly drive sales of either products or services

Be aware that Facebook uses artificial intelligence to help optimize your ads and target the right audience.

Facebook Ad Formats

You can choose from a variety of ad types. Ads contain text and a call to action but can come in a variety of formats.

• Single image ads
• Video ads
• Carousel (multiple image) ads - each image can have its own link
• Slideshow ads - combining images and videos into a short video presentation
• Collection ads - a catalog of products

Additional ad types include:

• Lead ads - to gather contact information
• Instant Experience ads - only available on mobile to provide a "full-screen immersive experience"
• Stories ads - vertical ads appearing within the Stories feature
• Messenger ads - conversation starters appearing within Facebook Messenger

Facebook also offers Dynamic ads that are automatically shown to users based on their interests and behaviors.

Facebook Ads Best Practices

Choosing the right ad objective and ad format puts you on the right track toward getting the most out of Facebook ads. However, there are other things you can do to optimize your ads:

1. Create ads to the correct specifications. Each ad format has specific dimensions, file types, and other technical requirements. Make sure to follow those guidelines.
2. Develop concise text. Ads should not be wordy, and your ad copy should be clear, concise, and compelling.
3. Craft a strong call to action or CTA. A successful ad is one that drives interactions and that drive concrete actions so the CTA should be short and action oriented.
4. Use strong visuals. Whether using graphics, photographs, or videos, make sure they are high quality and eye catching.
5. Use the 20% rule. If you are placing text on your ad image, make sure the text does not take up more than 20% of the image area.
6. Dial in your targeting. Facebook lets you target based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and more, so make sure you know your audience.

Not every ad will work for you. Try the A/B testing feature in the Ad Manager to test out different headlines, copy, and imagery to identify which ads perform better.

Additional Facebook Advertising Features

Facebook’s Ad Manager provides more than the ad builders and ad campaign management. You can track the activity on each ad including impressions (how many people are shown your ad), clicks, and conversions.

For more detailed tracking, install the Meta pixel (formerly called a Facebook pixel) - a small line of JavaScript code that you place into the header section of your websites HTML code. The pixel tracks user actions that happen through your Facebook ads, such as form submissions if you’re using a lead generation ad or sales-oriented actions such as adding an item to a shopping cart on your ecommerce site or making a purchase.

When it comes to the cost of your ads, you can employ a bidding strategy such as automatic, spend-based, goal-based or manual.

• Automatic bidding - this is the lowest cost version. You set a budget and the system will find the lowest cost for each type of result.
• Spend-based bidding - choose from either getting more results (highest volume) or securing more conversions (highest value).
• Goal-based bidding - there are a variety of ways you can bid based on your goal including Cost Cap, Bid Cap, and Target Cost.
• Manual Bidding - this allows you to choose the bid for each ad you place.

Each method of bidding comes with pros and cons and choosing one will often depend on your budget.

As you can see, there are many aspects to advertising on Facebook and a variety of ways to configure your ad campaigns. Facebook offers guides for businesses with their own set of tips, best practices, and explanations to help you get the most out of their advertising platform.